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y^HIS Edition of The Village Blacksmith is published by special 

ARRANGEMENT WITH MESSRS. HOUGHTON, MiFFLIN & Co. . THE AUTHORIZED 



publishers of Mr. Longfellow's Works. 




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'77/6' S7nith, a mighty man is he:' 



The Village Blacksmith 



HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 



ILLUSTRATED 



NEW YORK 

E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY 

31 West Twenty-third Street 







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Copyright, iSSj, 
By E. P. DuTTON AND Company. 



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*ROCKWE LL 5> Li^^te!^ |C H U R C H I LL^i 




T^RUE poet is also true priest. He takes of 
earth's commonest things, the plain bread and 
water of every-day toil and trial, and, having laid 
loving, reverent hands upon them, he delivers them 
unto us enriched with a new grace, a diviner virtue. 
It is the sacrament of thought. 

Half a century ago — and until within a few 
years — a blacksmith's shop, of the old New Eng- 
land village type, stood in Brattle street, Cambridge, 
not far from Longfellow's home. Hundreds of 
passers-by glanced at the low roof, the overhang- 
ing boughs, the grimy smith at his forge, the 
gazing children at the door, and went their way 
without giving them a second thought. Not so 
the poet. Where others saw but the veriest com- 



INTR OD UC TION. 



monplacc he discovered fit material for tuneful 
song, — love, sorrow, the patience of hope, the 
strength of dut\', all the beauty and tragedy of 
earnest human living. And though smith and 
smithy, the sheltering tree, the loitering children, 
poet and passers-by, alike are gone, the song 
lives on. Its pictures fade not; its lessons grow 
not old ; it will but become the more precious as 
the times and customs which it commemorates 
slide farther back into the past, and differ more 
widely from those of to-day. 

W. M. L. J. 




ILLUSTRATIONS 

DRAWN AND ENGRAVED UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF 

GEORGE T. ANDREW. 



ARTISTS, 

Edmund H. Garrett, Jessie Curtis Shepherd, 

Frank T. Merrill, Miss E. S. Tucker, 

Chas. Copeland, F. B. Schell, 



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T TNDER a spreading chestnut tree 

The village smithy stands ; 
The smith, a mighty man is he, 

With large and sinewy hands ; 
And the muscles of his brawny arms 

Are strone as iron bands. 



His hair is crisp, and black, and loni;", 

His face is like the tan ; 
His brow is wet with honest sweat. 

He earns whate'er he can, 
And looks the whole workl in the face. 

For he owes not an)' man. 




Week in, week out, from morn till night 

You can hear his bellows blow ; 
You can hear him swint; his hea\-\' sledge, 



With measured beat and slow, 
Like a sexton I'inging the 

village bell, 
When the evening sun is low. 





And children coming home from school 

Look in at the open door ; 
They love to see the flaming forge. 

And hear the bellows roar, 
And catch the burning sparks that fly 

Like chaff from a threshins" floor. 




He goes on Sunday to the church, 



And sits among his boys ; 
He hears the parson pray and preach, 






Singing in the village choir, 



And it makes his heart rejoice. 



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It sounds to him like her mother's voice, 



Singing in Paradise ! 




He needs must think of her once more, 

How in the grave she hes ; 
And with his hard, rough hand he wipes 

A tear out of his eyes. 





Toiling, — rejoicing, — sorrowing. 
Onward through hfe he goes; 

Each morning sees some task begin, 
Each evening sees it close ; 

Something attempted, something done, 
Has earned a night's repose. 




Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend, 
For the lesson thou hast taught ! 

Thus at the flamhig forge of hfe 
Our fortunes must be wrought ; 

Thus on its sounding anvil shaped 
Each burnincf deed and thought! 






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